hmc
Active Member
Hi guys,
in the last couple of days I tried to figure out the best way to transcode video content to be played back on the Pandora using PanPlayer (MPlayer).
I came up with three presets for the "Handbrake" transcoding tool, which gives you:
1. LQ: low quality with 300kbps and 400px horizontal resolution (vertical res. according to aspect ratio of content): ok for informational content, but artefacts are well visible and due to only quarter resolution, the image is a little blurry. But it gives small files and low CPU load.
2. MQ: medium quality with 500kbps and 400px horizontal resolution (vertical res. according to aspect ratio of content): this is quite good for all kinds of contents, I use it for movies. Still a little blurry and a few artefacts, but a good compromise
3. HQ: high quality with 900kbps and full Pandora resolution (800px horizontal). Very good video quality.
Audio is always encoded as MP3 stereo with 128kbps.
All presets use MPEG-4 for video. I tested with H.264, too, but decoding H.264 with otherwise identical encoder settings needs much more CPU power on the Pandora and does not see to add a lot of quality, so I chose MPEG-4.
On my Pandora, with Conky measuring CPU load, decoding an MQ movie needs about 30..40% of CPU and HQ needs around 90% of the CPU. In some cases, e.g. if other processes cause more CPU load, choosing a higher CPU frequency may be necessary to avoid stuttering on HQ, but usually it should work just out of the box.
Hints for optimization are welcome of course.
Have fun!
Daniel
Handbrake_Presets_for_PanPlayer.zip
P.S.: The attached files are exported presets of Handbrake. You can use them for Handbrake by importing them. On Mac OS X, use Handbrake's menu "Presets" and menu item "Import". Don't know if it's the same on other platforms.
----
EDIT: Member "Antarctica" wrote about a similar topic using mencoder:
in the last couple of days I tried to figure out the best way to transcode video content to be played back on the Pandora using PanPlayer (MPlayer).
I came up with three presets for the "Handbrake" transcoding tool, which gives you:
1. LQ: low quality with 300kbps and 400px horizontal resolution (vertical res. according to aspect ratio of content): ok for informational content, but artefacts are well visible and due to only quarter resolution, the image is a little blurry. But it gives small files and low CPU load.
2. MQ: medium quality with 500kbps and 400px horizontal resolution (vertical res. according to aspect ratio of content): this is quite good for all kinds of contents, I use it for movies. Still a little blurry and a few artefacts, but a good compromise
3. HQ: high quality with 900kbps and full Pandora resolution (800px horizontal). Very good video quality.
Audio is always encoded as MP3 stereo with 128kbps.
All presets use MPEG-4 for video. I tested with H.264, too, but decoding H.264 with otherwise identical encoder settings needs much more CPU power on the Pandora and does not see to add a lot of quality, so I chose MPEG-4.
On my Pandora, with Conky measuring CPU load, decoding an MQ movie needs about 30..40% of CPU and HQ needs around 90% of the CPU. In some cases, e.g. if other processes cause more CPU load, choosing a higher CPU frequency may be necessary to avoid stuttering on HQ, but usually it should work just out of the box.
Hints for optimization are welcome of course.
Have fun!
Daniel
Handbrake_Presets_for_PanPlayer.zip
P.S.: The attached files are exported presets of Handbrake. You can use them for Handbrake by importing them. On Mac OS X, use Handbrake's menu "Presets" and menu item "Import". Don't know if it's the same on other platforms.
----
EDIT: Member "Antarctica" wrote about a similar topic using mencoder:
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